Who's got recommendations on receivers (not the football kind)?

Sep 21, 2011 12:13 AM

i currently have a yamaha htr-5860 that's a few years old now. unfortunately, it has no (zero, zip, zilch) hdmi inputs. and, i've grown tired of routing the video and audio separately and then having to adjust the delay to get them to sync up.

so, who has the skinny on a new receiver? my price range is $400-600. it doesn't need to be super powerful or anything. my current receiver is powerful enough to drive my speakers quite nicely (http://bit.ly/oyRyRb)

i've been looking at the aventage line (rx-a1000), but can't tell if it's actually worth the extra cash. for example, the rx-v867 can be had for about $479. the rx-a1000 is a little under $600. aside from the extra hdmi inputs, what would i gain with the rx-a1000?

Obviously, i'm partial to yamaha since it's treated me so well. but, i'm open to other suggestions.

oh, and feel free to link to a good deal on the receiver you're recommending as well.

Ok, you are asking for an audiophile. It's discounted at Audio Advisor, $100 off and barely gets into your price range. $499. I am glad that you are not looking purely for "power", since that number hardly means anything in the serious audiophile world. This Marantz is a solid performer with clean and detailed sound, plus a calibration with mic feature (which is very useful). This is no high-end audio, of course, you'd have to spend thousands more for that, but for the price, this is fantastic. It's also built like a tank, which is rare for this price range.

Brand also does not mean too much, since each component is designed differently to different specs. Unless you are talking about vacuum tube-based components, not many brand has "signature sound" these days. Hope this helps.

I bought a Pioneer 1019 last year to replace a lightning bolted Onkyo HTIB receiver. The increase in performance is significant. I got it for under $400. The newer 1020 and 1021 have newer features. Maybe even airplay?

I run all my devices through my receiver via HDMI then run an HDMI to my tv for video. It works pretty well except sometimes watching TV every hour or so the video goes blank for a second or two. I blame the Cox Box since it only happens watching cable, not movies or PS3 or Xbox.

Or you could look into NAD amplifiers. They are supposed to be very high quality audiophile equipment without spending 4 figures (but you can). They aren't as fancy looking as store brands but they do have removable modules so you can upgrade inputs without having to buy a new receiver (I think anyway).

I have a Denon AVR-4310CI that I purchased a few years ago now and have had only two complaints about it (needs to be wired for firmware updates instead of wireless and PS3 sometimes has problems syncing with it but can easily be fixed). For your price range the Denon AVR-2112CI (http://bit.ly/oPLcbE) fits into it. Best price I could find is $524.99 at DigitalCraze (http://bit.ly/nOOlLH).

@wootbretz: yeah, it's always fun. except i tend to over-research things to the point of dragging out a decision for months. when i was looking to buy a plasma a few years ago, my wife actually bothered me to just buy a tv.

but, on the other hand, i've never had buyer's remorse about any electronic component i've purchased. so, i guess OCD level research has helped.

@carl669: Unless you can hear them side-by-side, no one could say such thing with words. A large part of it (to the general consumer) is subjective.

High-Fidelity means "hi accuracy". It has nothing to do with "pleasant" or not. If the source material is crappy, it should faithfully produce it as crappy. Movies aren't generally the best recorded source out there. So my guess is that those people who thought certain receivers are "better" at movies may have a warmer (faster roll-off, low odd harmonic distortion at high frequencies) tonality to them; but when you use it with music it sounds "lackluster". It's a guess.

Audiophiles look for fidelity, not pleasant-ness. So whether a machine can be "good for music but poor for movies" is just badly defined. I use tube amps, and they are low-powered, but highly accurate equipment (5-figure), and I both listen to music (from good source materials) and watch movies from it.

@carl669: Btw, if you can't figure out between two pieces of equipment, buy both, and do an A-B comparison. I suggested Audio Advisor because they also have a good return policy; they serve a higher-end clientele and understand that audio is a very personal and subjective product.

I used to work for Onkyo, and have a soft spot for them. The reason is simple, their design focuses on a clean and natural sound, and the signature can be heard (unlike the "big brands" like Sony etc, which does not focus on sound signature). Use a coupon code to drop it to below $500.

Woot.com is operated by Woot Services LLC.
Products on Woot.com are sold by Woot, Inc., other than items on Wine.Woot which are sold by the seller specified on the product detail page.
Product narratives are for entertainment purposes and frequently employ
literary point of view;
the narratives do not express Woot's editorial opinion.
Aside from literary abuse, your use of this site also subjects you to Woot's
terms of use
and
privacy policy.
Woot may designate a user comment as a Quality Post, but that doesn't mean we agree with or guarantee anything said or linked to in that post.

Not a farewell, just a forced redirect.

It's true, Local.Woot is no longer, but please don't despair.

Never-ending savings are still to be found on Deals.Woot each and every day, so come on in. Don't think of it as a time for tears. Think of it as a way to bring us all closer together under one roof.

Sorry

This is only for people who have bought woots

We restrict voting to users who have purchased something from one of the other Woot stores. It's not just because we want your money (which we do) - it's the best way to be sure all the votes are coming from real people and not spam-bots or phony accounts. The best way we can think of, anyway. For now.

You can always get voting rights by buying something from one of Woot's other sites:

Purchases through Deals.Woot don't count, because in that case you're not buying anything from us. And we don't have your account information for those purchases.

If you think you've bought something from Woot before and still can't vote, make sure you're logged in with the same account you used to buy from us.

Geez, why so negative?

You have to vote up more before you can vote down.

Don't get us wrong. Negativity has its place. And downvotes are just as essential as upvotes when it comes to making Deals.Woot a useful place to find deals.

But when your votes lean so heavily toward the dark side, we have to wonder. Go vote up a few things. Accentuate the positive for a little while. It'll do you some good, and it'll do the site some good, too. Then you can get back to dealing out the smackdowns, OK?

Too late, we all heard you!

Hmm... you're wanting to take your vote back?

Well, that's a bit tricky. See, we do a lot of stuff with your vote, using it to work out the popularity of what you voted for, compare that to all the other things voted on, tally up our leaderboard, work out your reputation. Someday we'll do a little cartoon showing just how hard your vote is working.

Anyway, taking votes back messes all that up, so we give you five minutes, in case you just mis-clicked. After that we've got to say no take-backs. Luckily, votes are free, so feel free to throw them around left and right wherever you see fit.